Glossary / Accrual Accounting

What is Accrual Accounting?

An accounting method that records revenue when earned and expenses when incurred, regardless of when cash is received or paid.

Why it matters for your nonprofit

Boards, auditors, and funders expect clarity on Accrual Accounting because it affects how you report resources, stay compliant, and explain your financial story.

How it shows up in daily work

You will see Accrual Accounting in board packets, grant reports, and donor conversations. The goal is to record activity once and report it consistently—without rebuilding spreadsheets every month.

Common mistakes

• Treating restricted resources like general cash because the chart of accounts is not set up for funds.
• Letting finance and development use different definitions for the same funds.
• Waiting until year-end to fix coding errors that should be caught monthly.

How Alignmint helps

Alignmint ties fund accounting, donor records, and reporting in one place so terms like Accrual Accounting show up correctly in your books—not only in a policy memo.